Sports Affairs Council (SAC) officials met representatives of the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association and Chinese Professional Baseball League yesterday, seeking ways to salvage the nation’s waning baseball reputation.
The meeting was launched after Taiwan’s dismal performance at the World Baseball Classic earlier this month, when Taiwan was eliminated from the competition following losses to South Korea and China.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) ordered the council to submit a plan on how to improve the nation’s baseball by the end of this month.
SAC Deputy Minister Chen Hsien-chung (陳顯宗) said in a telephone interview with the Taipei Times that several professors from the nation’s sports colleges attended the meeting, including Kao Ying-chieh (高英傑), former coach of New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民).
Chen said that representatives agreed to divide international games into different tiers. The World Baseball Classic or Asian Games, for example, would be classed as level-1 games and first-rate players would compete in these events.
They also agreed to establish ways for the three associations to better communicate. They also agreed to strive for a better showing in the upcoming Asian Games.
Chen, however, rebutted reports that the SAC would budget NT$300 million (US$10 million) to help baseball over the next four years, saying that a detailed plan would not be complete until the end of the month.
Chen said that funding would not only go to professional baseball, but also to baseball teams at the school level. The exact amount had not been determined, he said.
Seven of the 17 NT$10 million (US$311,604) winning receipts from the November-December uniform invoice lottery remain unclaimed as of today, the Ministry of Finance said, urging winners to redeem their prizes by May 5. The reminder comes ahead of the release of the winning numbers for the January-February lottery tomorrow. Among the unclaimed receipts was one for a NT$173 phone bill in Keelung, while others were for a NT$5,913 purchase at Costco in Taipei's Neihu District (內湖), a NT$49 purchase at a FamilyMart in New Taipei City's Tamsui District (淡水), and a NT$500 purchase at a tea shop in New Taipei City's
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
Deliveries of delayed F-16V jets are expected to begin in September, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said today, after senior defense officials visited the US last week. The US in 2019 approved a US$8 billion sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the nation’s F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems. Koo appeared today before a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which is discussing different versions of the special defense budget this week. The committee is questioning officials today,
TALENT SCOUTING: The university is investing substantial funds in its future to bring in the kind of researchers that would keep the college internationally competitive National Taiwan University (NTU) plans to invest NT$2 billion (US$62.6 million) to launch two programs aimed at attracting and retaining top research talent, university president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章) said yesterday. The funding would support the “Palm Grove Scholars Project,” which targets academics aged 40 to 55. Up to 20 scholars would be selected, each receiving as much as NT$10 million annually, Chen said. The initiative is designed to attract leading researchers to Taiwan and strengthen NTU’s global competitiveness by fostering a more research-friendly environment and expanding international collaboration, he said. NTU is also introducing a “Hong Hu” chair grant, which would provide Palm
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